The bar, which oversees California’s 225,000 lawyers, told the state Supreme Court on Monday that federal law leaves regulation of the legal profession largely up to the states and does not appear to prohibit Sergio C. Garcia, 35, of Chico from obtaining an attorney’s license.

Garcia was 17 months old when his parents brought him to the United States from Mexico. He returned to Mexico with them at age 9, came back at 17, put himself through college and law school and passed the bar on his first try in 2009. He has been working as a paralegal.

His father, now a legal U.S. resident, sponsored Garcia’s application for legal status and a green card in 1994. Garcia told an interviewer last year that he expects to wait another five to 15 years for approval.

In the meantime, the bar has certified his moral fitness to practice law, but the state’s high court, which licenses attorneys in California, put his application on hold last month and said it would use the case to decide whether undocumented immigrants are eligible to practice law. A similar case is pending in Florida.